NRL celebrates women in league in new campaign 'Womanifesto' created by MJW

The NRL are today launching a new campaign celebrating and acknowledging the diverse and unexpected roles women play in the continuing success of rugby league.

Created by MJW, Wo-manifesto is designed to break down female stereotypes as well as acknowledging the amazing contribution of women at grass roots level. The campaign showcases volunteers and mothers but also a female physiotherapist and a referee as part of a wider strategy to connect with female audiences.

18 Comments

Jimmy said:

Nothing special.

Could condense into a 30 sec spot.

I like the notion of saluting females and their behind the scenes efforts - smart move by the client in light of various scandals over the years but the creative is, for the brief, a little too predictable.

Wall-to-wall VO, and banal at that, in tandem with the laundry list of visual cliches on the subject of rugby mums all wrapped up in a charming little piano sonata to tug at the heart strings.

Yawn.

It's nice that someone is trying to bridge the gender gap with a football code more recognised for abuse of women than adoration, but something a bit deeper than a Hallmark card would be in order. Unless of course existing NRL fans are the target audience, in which case the amateur storytelling will hardly be noticed.

This might pass with the Mrs Bs, Parramatta Mums, Rugby Mums, and Pro Women of NSW whose sons developed more brawn than brain to make it in the NRL, but CB is an industry blog, and for your colleagues, this kind of cloying copy is just embarrassing.

Besides, we're betting that the four commenters mentioned above are all pseudonyms for the writer who hacked this out in the first place.

All of the positive comments are so transparently generated by the agency. I mean an actual real life Mum from Parramatta reads and comments on Campaign Brief...of course they do. That ad is bland at best.... and why is every NRL ad black and white all of a sudden? Is it an attempt to create a fake art-house moody look and feel? If so it ain't working it actually reinforces that this is totally colourless creative.

..."Wind beneath our wingers"??? Possibly the worst line in an ad ever. About as appealing as the wind between my cheeks... This ad looks like it was written by someone who has no understanding of the game or its culture at all. It also looks like the agency in suggesting this type of ad is desperately trying to appear current and insightful